Civil Engineer at National Park Service — Homestead, FL

National Park Service facilities engineers work on a version of civil engineering shaped entirely by where the buildings sit: inside protected, often remote and environmentally sensitive land, where a straightforward drainage or wastewater project has to clear historic-preservation review, endangered-species consultation, and construction-logistics constraints that a comparable municipal project never would. This posting covers planning, design, and construction oversight for park buildings and infrastructure — drainage systems, wastewater collection and treatment, potable water supply and distribution, plus renovation of visitor centers, housing, and maintenance facilities — and requires managing outside architecture-engineering contracts as well as producing in-house design work, which is why incumbents must complete FAC-COR II certification (the federal government's standard credential for administering and overseeing contracts above a certain dollar threshold) within two years of starting. Because this is a combination announcement covering more than one park unit, the salary figures attached to a given posting don't always track cleanly to a single duty station; prospective applicants should confirm the exact range tied to the Everglades National Park location directly through the original listing rather than treating any single number here as fixed for that site. Everglades National Park's civil engineering work is dominated by water management in a uniquely challenging setting — a subtropical wetland where drainage and water infrastructure interact directly with a federally protected ecosystem — which puts this role closer to a water-resources specialist than a generalist facilities engineer, even though NPS classifies the position simply as Civil Engineer. Compared to a municipal water-utility engineer, the defining difference is regulatory environment: environmental compliance and resource protection drive the design constraints here at least as much as hydraulic performance does.